Emergency Communications Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Allan of Hallam
Main Page: Lord Allan of Hallam (Non-affiliated - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Allan of Hallam's debates with the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology
(1 year, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberIt will be an area covered by the report. I stress that, from the information that I have so far, BT was able to implement its disaster recovery planning and system and return, albeit at a slightly slower pace, to the ability to answer 999 calls. I very much take the point that the wrong combination of catastrophic failures would indeed create a very serious and broad situation.
My Lords, people dealing with a health crisis may call either 111 or 999 and each of those services will refer people on to the other as appropriate. Can the Minister confirm that there are protocols in place such that the operators of each service are informed as soon as one of them goes down so that they can stop referring people on, and whether there are protocols in place for each service to handle the overload if one has gone down?
It is an excellent question; I am afraid the truth is that I do not know the answer at this point, but I will be happy to write to the noble Lord.